Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s past comments about censorship come amid his decision to End fact-checking on his US platformrevealing a storied timeline of seemingly contradictory positions that seemed to put him at odds with the company.

Zuckerberg sparked controversy in 2019 by refusing to fact-check political ads, claiming that Facebook did not support censoring users, citing his belief that people have the right to “make their own decisions” based on the content they post.

“I don’t think private companies should be censoring politicians or the news,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with CBS then.

Zuckerberg vows to restore free expression on Facebook, Instagram, META ends fact-checking program

“I generally think that, as a principle, people should decide what is credible, what they want to believe and who they want to vote for, and I don’t think that should be what we want tech companies or any type of company to do things. Things other companies do,” He said in an interview with Fox News same year.

He also gave a speech at Georgetown University in 2019, criticizing China for restricting free speech on the Internet.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives in Washington, DC, to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis” on January 31, 2024. (Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2020, Zuckerberg once again strengthened his position, saying in a subsequent interview with Fox News, “I firmly believe that Facebook should not be the arbiter of the truth in everything people say online. Private companies probably shouldn’t be doing that. , especially these platform companies should not do this.”

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But just a month after that appearance, Zuckerberg’s company Meta (then Facebook) announced it was expanding its U.S. fact-checking program, Was touting it at the time as “a key part of our strategy to reduce the spread of misinformation” on the platform.

After the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, Facebook banned then-President Trump from the social media site. The company did not reinstate Trump’s account until January 2023.

April 2024, Zuckerberg admit in a letter Facebook is under pressure from the Biden-Harris administration to censor content from Americans about COVID-19. Zuckerberg said that while he acknowledged the decision, he did not support it and expressed remorse for bowing to pressure from Biden officials.

The tech mogul’s previous comments came into the spotlight again this week after he announced that Meta would lift speech restrictions and “restore free speech on Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s platforms” by ending its third-party fact-checking program and acknowledging that they ‘s content moderation practices have gone “too far.”

Executives said Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was first implemented after the 2016 election and was used to “moderate content” and misinformation on its platform, largely due to “political pressure.”

The Meta platform is displayed on a smartphone screen on August 9, 2024, with the Meta logo appearing against the background of Chania, Greece. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

As of Zuckerberg’s announcement on Tuesday, ten prominent fact-checking organizations were working with the company to moderate political content in the United States

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Facebook confirmed to Fox News that Reuters, USA Today, Dispatch, PolitiFact, AFP US, Check Your Fact, Factcheck.org, Lead Stories, Science Feedback and ElDetector Univision form a team of third-party fact-checking partners digital.

They were told to prioritize “provably false claims, especially those that are timely, popular, and consequential. They will not prioritize claims that are trivial or contain only minor errors.” Meta 2024 Press Release.

Many of those groups lamented Zuckerberg’s decision to cancel his plans on Tuesday and blasted his attempts to avoid online bias as misguided and sudden.

Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk outlined his disappointment and disagreement with the move, saying he only learned of the end of the partnership through media reports of Zuckerberg’s decision to cut the project.

Facebook Inc. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the Silicon Slopes Technology Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, Friday, January 31, 2020. (George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn of the end of Meta’s third-party fact-checking partnership through media reports and press releases, having been part of the partnership since 2019,” he Written on Tuesday.

Facebook Fact Checker, which employs several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the best-known fact-checkers used by Facebook in recent years.

PolitiFact similarly scoffed at the move to end their eight-year relationship with Meta, saying Meta initially hired them to “identify disinformation and hoaxes on its platform.”

Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit that owns PolitiFact, called Zuckerberg’s announcement “disappointing.”

“It perpetuates misunderstandings about his own plans,” Brown said of Zuckerberg’s statement. “Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censor anything. Meta has always been in charge. Now is the time Stop using inflammatory and false language when describing the role of journalists and fact-checkers.”

Paris-based global news agency AFP said it had also learned Zuckerberg canceled the plan at the same time as the public.

“This is a severe blow to the fact-checking community and journalism. We are assessing the situation.” they told Reuters.

Zuckerberg’s decision is widely celebrated by conservativesMedia critics and right-leaning online users are frustrated with fact-checkers after some questionable practices sparked outrage. In recent years, some have accused fact-checking sites of acting as shields for Democrats and with partisan agendas.

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A PolitiFact executive lashed out at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after he announced the end of fact-checking on his social media platform. (Kent Nishimura for Getty Images.)

Conservative KTTH radio host Jason Rantz once called PolitiFact “Democratic activists who have chosen to weaponize truly objective analysis” after the group published several controversial articles targeting Republicans. Fact check.

Lanz was The organization stated It is one of the most “partisanly transparent” websites and is often used by left-wing media to amplify political propaganda.

When asked about the 2022 allegations, Katie Sanders, managing editor of PolitFact, said the fact-checking site stands by its reporting.

President-elect Donald Trump often complains about fact-checkers complain about people Behind the practice of moderation throughout the 2024 campaign. He praised Zuckerberg’s decision on Tuesday to end Meta’s third-party fact-checking, telling Fox News Digital that the company “has made great progress.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Meta Repeatedly tout Its third-party fact-checking initiative is an effective system that “reduces the spread of misinformation and provides users with more reliable information.”

They say all organizations must comply with code of principles The bill, drafted by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), includes qualities such as “non-partisanship, fairness, transparency of sources, transparency of funding and organization, and open and honest corrections policy.”

Meta’s page promoting the program remained active as of Wednesday, despite Zuckerberg’s accusations that the group’s moderation practices “went too far.”

In a video announcing the end of the program, Zuckerberg pledged to “return to our roots and focus on reducing errors, simplifying our policies, and restoring free speech on our platforms.”

Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, praised the move as “a great opportunity for us to strike a balance with free speech” on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.

“We went to independent third-party fact-checkers,” he later said Tell Fox News Numbers. “It’s clear there’s so much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because basically they can fact-check anything they see on the platform.”

“We want to ensure that speech can occur freely on the platform without fear of censorship,” Kaplan added. “We have the power to change the rules to make them more supportive of free speech. We don’t just change the rules, we actually change them. way of enforcing the rules.”

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Kaplan said Meta will “put an end to that” and replace it with a “community note” model similar to the one used on X (formerly Twitter).

Meta’s global fact-checking program appears to be continuing to operate uninterrupted. Fox News Digital did not respond when asked about the future of the global program.

Fox News’ Brooke Singleman and Nicholas Lanum contributed to this report.